Daming Yuanfu

Chapter 2315: Fengshan (XII) The Holy Chariot Sets Off

The spring breeze blew gently, and everything came back to life, but the streets of the capital were still filled with a solemn and tense atmosphere. All officials gathered and the people were watching, looking forward to this historic spectacle.

Finally, the gate of the Forbidden City slowly opened, and golden sunlight spread across the earth, as if putting a glorious coat on this grand journey.

Emperor Wanli Zhu Yijun, wearing a dragon robe and a crown on his head, walked out of the Qianqing Palace with steady steps, followed closely by a group of civil and military officials. They were either wearing official uniforms or armor, and all had solemn expressions on their faces, showing the majesty and solemnity of the court.

As the prime minister of the dynasty and a civil official who had been awarded a title, Gao Youshi was naturally an important member of the entourage, perhaps even the most important one. He held a jade tablet in his hand, wore a bright red silk robe, and had a lifelike picture of a python head embroidered on his chest, which made him look particularly unique.

There were few dragon robes granted to the emperor, and most of them were walking dragons, with the side of a dragon head embroidered on them. Sitting dragons were different, with a large frontal dragon head embroidered on it, with two horns on its head, very much like a dragon. In the court, even if several dukes were counted, there were not enough red silk sitting dragon robes to make up a handful.

As for the civil officials, there were several who wore pythons, such as other cabinet ministers, the Minister of Personnel, and the Left Censor-in-Chief, but only Gao Youshi sat on a python, while the others were all walking pythons. However, the three dukes of the Jingnan clique all sat on pythons - in fact, if they were still young when they inherited the title, they generally did not have this treatment, and it was usually given after inheriting the title for many years and accumulating merits.

Following the emperor's order, the team heading south began to move slowly. The first thing that caught the eye was hundreds of imperial guards wearing red and yellow mandarin duck battle robes and armor. They held spears and marched in unison, like a red and yellow torrent, escorting the imperial carriage. Inside the imperial guard formation and behind the imperial sedan were civil and military officials wearing various robes and official uniforms. They were arranged according to their ranks and walked out in an orderly manner, demonstrating the order and dignity of the court.

In front of them was a magnificently decorated dragon chariot. The chariot was carried by thirty-six strong eunuchs and moved slowly forward. It was inlaid with various gems and gold and silver ornaments, shining brightly in the sun, dazzling the eyes. On the chariot, the emperor sat in it, looking into the distance, as if he was examining the country he was about to visit.

As the dragon chariot started, the whole team began to slowly move towards Zhengyang Gate and Yongding Gate. People along the way knelt on the ground and shouted "Long live the emperor", their voices shook the sky. They held flowers or lit incense and candles, expressing their admiration and blessings for the emperor in their own way.

The roads along which the imperial carriage passed had already been decorated like poems and paintings. Colorful flags fluttered in the wind, and all kinds of lanterns were hung on the branches, decorating the entire capital like a fairyland. Various landscapes carefully made by skilled craftsmen were also placed on both sides of the roads along which the imperial carriage passed. All these reflected the prosperity and profound culture of the Ming Dynasty.

When the emperor arrived at Zhengyang Gate, a more spectacular scene appeared before everyone's eyes. The gate was already covered with huge red lanterns and colorful silks, and on both sides of the gate were two rows of soldiers wearing armor and holding rifles. They stood solemnly, their eyes sparkling, as if they were guarding the last line of defense for the emperor's journey.

With the sound of a loud horn, the gate of Yongdingmen slowly opened. The emperor, accompanied by the imperial guards and civil and military officials, drove out of the capital and headed for the suburbs. At this moment, the whole capital seemed to be boiling with excitement. People cheered and shouted "Long live the emperor", vying to remember this historic moment in their hearts.

After leaving Yongding Gate, the original team formation changed. Gao Youshi, who was both the head of the civil officials and the most honored military officer of the dynasty, was already standing at the front of the team, looking firmly at the larger team ahead.

The team ahead was too large to leave the palace, so it could only be the Imperial Guards heading south. There were many opinions within the court about how many people the Imperial Guards should send south this time, and the controversy was so great that even Gao Youshi had to modify the plan several times.

In the end, because the smooth progress of the Western Expedition saved some expenses, the court, whose finances were suddenly a little better, at the insistence of its ministers, directly reduced the establishment of the imperial guards heading south to one town, or more than 12,500 people.

This made Gao Youshi somewhat unhappy, because it conflicted with his previous plans and even with the concept of Fengshan that he had defined - he had previously advocated the use of Fengshan to boost the economy along the way and rectify the official style, and was opposed to causing trouble to the people along the way.

But now, he also knew the mentality of these "ministers of the Celestial Empire": they must maintain their dignity as long as they can. Especially since there are many envoys from vassal states in the team heading south, they must show off their power. After all, the money issue is a small issue. With Yuan Fu, the living god of wealth, these are not a big deal.

Back to the Imperial Guards, the Imperial Guards that went south this time were finally selected as the First Town, and were commanded by Li Rumei, the deputy commander of the Imperial Guards. Although Ma Dong, the commander of the First Town, had more seniority, he could only be his deputy.

Here we need to add a little explanation. The Imperial Guards, as the main field force directly under the imperial court, was created by Gao Youshi when he restructured the Beijing Camp. Its rank was very high. For example, the commander of a town in the Imperial Guards was always assigned according to the general. In other words, only if you have served as a general, or are capable of serving as a general, are you qualified to serve as the commander of a town in the Imperial Guards.

As for the commander, deputy commander and chief of staff of the Imperial Guard, which you want to ask about, they are all imperial envoys - because in theory, the highest military command authority of the Ming Dynasty's generals is only at the level of general. Now that the Imperial Guard is "super", it can only be justified by the "imperial envoy".

Therefore, in the official documents of the court, the commander of the Imperial Guard was actually called the "Imperial Commander of the Imperial Guards", the deputy commander of the Imperial Guards was called the "Imperial Commissioner Assisting in the Military Affairs of the Imperial Guards", the chief of staff of the Imperial Guards was called the "Imperial Commissioner of Staff of the Imperial Guards"... and so on for other positions in the headquarters.

Let's talk about Li Rumei and Ma Dong leading the first regiment of the imperial guard to escort the emperor. These two candidates were selected by Gao Youshi. At that time, there was some discussion in the court. They thought that since both of them were cavalry generals, shouldn't they be replaced by infantry generals to balance it out? But the discussion was useless. For such a purely military matter, as long as Gao Youshi insisted, the words of others would have no reference value. No matter how much you said, it was just noise in the eyes of the emperor - what, do you think you know more about military affairs than Gao Yuanfu?

Gao Youshi's explanation for this was that the emperor had no worries about the battle this time, and the reason for choosing cavalry generals to lead the troops was that the First Town had temporarily changed its organization before the selection specifically to escort the emperor, and had transferred in more cavalry. Therefore, having these two cavalry generals lead the troops could better demonstrate the military might.

Gao Youshi meant that the first town heading south was not the original organization, but a temporary organization specially made for escorting the emperor, with the infantry and cavalry forces adjusted to a one-to-one ratio, that is, half infantry and half cavalry. When escorting the emperor south, the marching column usually has infantry inside and cavalry outside, so that the show is large enough and more impressive. The court officials accepted this reasoning, because showing off their prestige was what they wanted. You know, Gao Youshi originally thought that mobilizing a detachment of the Imperial Guards to serve as guards was already more than enough, and there was no need for more, and there was no other use except spending money.

The reason why Gao Youshi was willing to replace many infantry with cavalry seemed to be that he had to spend more money, but this was another consideration: I had already spent 90 yuan, so I was not afraid to spend another 10 yuan to make it even. Since he wanted to show off his power now, he might as well show it thoroughly. Except for the artillery, which was really unnecessary, he could have more cavalry. After all, this was armored cavalry, and even a three-year-old child would know how powerful it was.

After leaving the city, the imperial guards officially began their escort work, and the officials no longer had to walk, but got on their own carriages. This time, except for the emperor's sedan chair, which had to be carried by thirty-six people according to the rules, all the other nobles and officials who accompanied him all changed to carriages.

Although China had horse-drawn carriages long ago, it was only after Jinghua invented springs that horse-drawn carriages became luxury vehicles suitable for travel. Nowadays, Jinghua rarely even produces products such as carriages, but mainly manufactures carriage suspension systems and steel wheels (excluding wooden tire outer walls), as well as final assembly.

In addition, products such as the car body, interior and exterior decoration, and exterior (wooden) wheels are handed over to various professional partners - this is one of the manifestations of Jinghua's driving the development of many supporting industrial chains.

When the emperor went south this time, Gao Youshi insisted that officials either ride horses or carriages, but not sedan chairs. According to him, traveling such a long distance in a sedan chair, with so many officials accompanying, would require at least one or two thousand sedan chair bearers, which would be a sheer waste of the people's money, and could even cause many sedan chair bearers to get injured, disabled, or even die of exhaustion. It was definitely not a benevolent policy and must be banned.

You have to know that the escorts on the way south were mainly civil officials, and there were few military commanders who could lead troops in battle. Obviously, it was impossible to ride a horse, and it would never be possible in this life, so they could only take a carriage. This gave Gao Youshi another opportunity to vigorously promote the carriage, which he believed was beneficial to the country.

Gao Gongshi's consistent view is that most of the technological developments in ancient China were ahead of the world, but some were inevitably behind. For example, China's agricultural advantage was too great, which led to a huge population advantage. Many things did not need to rely on technology, but could be solved by manpower, and sedan chairs were one of them.

Horse-drawn carriages, ox-drawn carts, and mule-drawn carts have existed for a long time, but they were usually only used to carry cargo, because carrying people required a higher level of comfort. The comfort problem can be better solved by simply using people to carry sedan chairs, so there is no need to think of ways to evolve horse-drawn carriages.

However, in Gao Fusi's view, people should give full play to their production capacity rather than waste too much on services, because services do not directly generate material wealth. If we use the perspective of later generations, Gao Fusi attaches more importance to the improvement of national strength brought by industry rather than the improvement of GDP data brought by the service industry.

The imperial carriage traveled all the way southeast. As everyone knows, the route was to pass Tongzhou, Xianghe, Wuqing, and head straight to Tianjin, where it would stay for two days.

Then he continued his journey, changing to the canal waterway to the south to Cangzhou, Dezhou, Linqingzhou, Dongchangfu, and then changed to the land route to Yanzhoufu, where he stopped again to pay homage to Confucius in Qufu County. After paying homage to Confucius, the emperor headed north to Tai'an to begin the Fengshan ceremony.

After the Fengshan ceremony, the emperor went south again, passing Yanzhou Prefecture to Jining Prefecture, and then changed to the Grand Canal waterway to Xuzhou, and then took the waterway all the way to Huai'an Prefecture, and arrived in Yangzhou, where he stayed for three days. After setting off, he continued to go south to Zhenjiang, and then went up the Yangtze River to Nanjing Yingtian Prefecture, and the entire journey south was completed. As for the return trip, it was basically the same route, but the specific time had not yet been determined - because the emperor himself had not decided how long he would stay in Nanjing.

Of course, this is just a plan, and the holy chariot has just set off.

Nevertheless, as the "executive president" of this trip, Gao Youshi had to evaluate the actual performance. Overall, the emperor's trip was well organized, and all parties acted according to the plan without causing any trouble. In particular, Gao Youshi was very satisfied with the performance of the Imperial Guard. Although this army knew that it would not face any external danger, it still acted strictly in accordance with the requirements of the battle.

Apart from anything else, Li Rumei and Ma Dong even continued to send out scouts in front, behind, and around the emperor's carriage to ensure that any movement within a radius of 20 miles would be reported as soon as possible. It was not known whether they were doing it on purpose, or training their troops, or it was really a habit and there was no other intention.

Because there were always cavalry activities nearby, this really satisfied the wishes of most ministers in the court and gave some envoys from vassal states a broad view. In addition to the envoys from Tumed, the "Great Ming Jin Kingdom", who were not surprised by the armored cavalry of the Ming army, the vassal states in the east, south, and west all had a more intuitive understanding of the might and majesty of the Ming cavalry.

The south refers to the kingdoms of Nanjiang and Nanyang that are controlled by the Beijing Advisory Group. They have seen the cavalry of the garrison army, but because it is too hot in the south, the cavalry of the garrison army did not have the semi-armored equipment of the Ming Dynasty, but mainly used light equipment. Although the war horses are similar (they are from the same source), without this equipment, the sensory impact is far worse.

The "Western vassal states" are actually several tribes at the border of Central Asia and South Asia that have recently expressed their submission to Liu Jing, as well as the major plateau forces that have long been subject to the Ming Dynasty [Note: it is inconvenient to say more, please check the information yourself]. Although they can hardly be regarded as "countries", anyway, there are a lot of khans, kings, and even Dharma kings.

These people had certainly seen cavalry before, but they were also impressed by the excellent equipment of the Ming cavalry. When they heard that there were hundreds of thousands or even two hundred thousand such cavalry in the Ming Dynasty, everyone's eyes were dazed to varying degrees, and they subconsciously glanced at the extraordinarily luxurious imperial chariot in the distance, and they couldn't help but feel fear.

The so-called Ming Dynasty had more than 100,000 or 200,000 imperial guards cavalry, which was of course an exaggeration, but the current cavalry strength of the Ming Dynasty was indeed getting stronger and stronger, and it had not yet reached the state of Gao Gongshi's expected goal, and the court would continue to invest resources. From this perspective, they were not wrong to be afraid.

  However, the people who were most in awe of and interested in the Ming cavalry were not them, but the two envoys from the east: Tokugawa Hidetada and Shimazu Tadatsune, the chief and deputy chief of the Japanese delegation.
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PS: I have had diarrhea for three days, I am almost dehydrated, my eye sockets are sunken...